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Mr. Byers: There are issues that need to be addressed in Europe, and we believe that jobs and economic prosperity are the key issues.
In respect of harmful tax practices and tax havens, it is right that Europe should deal with those, but tax--
Sir Teddy Taylor (Rochford and Southend, East)
rose--
Mr. Byers:
I shall not give way; I want to make progress.
I want to make it clear that tax harmonisation is not the way forward. We must deal with harmful tax practices and tax havens.
Sir Teddy Taylor:
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
Mr. Byers:
I will not give way at this stage. Businesses throughout the European Union do not want it--as is shown by a report produced by the European employers federation--and we share their view.
Our agenda for modernisation and reform applies not just to the United Kingdom, but to Europe. For Europe, as for the United Kingdom, there can be no turning the clock back.
Sir Teddy Taylor:
Will the Chief Secretary give way?
The shadow Chancellor, as we know, is the man who signed the Maastricht treaty. He is now the man who likes to say no. He says no to the new deal for the young unemployed; 160,000 have entered that scheme, and 30,000 have now found work. He says no to the working families tax credit, which will make work pay for up to 1.5 million of our fellow citizens. He says no to the national minimum wage, which will benefit nearly 2 million people from April.
We need not only listen to the shadow Chancellor. In the early 1990s, the right hon. Gentleman was Financial Secretary to the Treasury. He did not just sign the Maastricht treaty; he did other things as well. During his period in office, interest rates never fell below 10 per cent., and reached 15 per cent. The public sector deficit was rising to £50 billion. This is the shadow Chancellor's record as Financial Secretary: unemployment rose by 1 million, manufacturing output fell by 7 per cent., and inflation rose to nearly 10 per cent.
We are not going back to those bad old Tory days. The Queen's Speech looks to the future; the Tories are stuck in the past. This Government's priority is fairness for all our people; the Tories defend the privileges of the few. We will not be diverted from the real issues that affect the British people: jobs, the economy, crime, schools, hospitals and, yes, our relationship with Europe.
Mr. Malcolm Bruce (Gordon):
Our debates have focused on a Queen's Speech which should have shown us that the Government were getting up a head of steam for radical reform but which, in fact, has been celebrated more for what it does not contain than for what it contains.
Listening to what I suppose the Conservatives would describe as an attack, I wondered when we would receive an apology for the fact that they signed the Single European Act and the Maastricht treaty. They now denounce those actions, consider them to have been a fatal mistake, but have not yet admitted that they should not
have done what they did. The truth is that this is a party that has made up its mind that it likes being in opposition and intends to stay there. It does not wish to deal with the question of how a country is to work in an expanding European Union in which it must advance its national interests in concert with other countries that are trying to do the same.
I commend the Chief Secretary's clear statement towards the end of his speech about tax and revenue co-ordination. As they stand, the treaties are unequivocal. It is no good quoting officials who may wish that they were different; they have been negotiated, and they are clear.
Many of us--many Liberal Democrats, certainly--who support the principle of British participation in the single currency, and support the idea of a single currency, believe that the corollary of a single bank setting a single interest rate is fiscal flexibility on the part of individual Governments, enabling such a system to be accommodated within their different national entities. It makes no difference what one member state says; we must all agree. The measure cannot be rammed through against our will. We retain that democratic right, and it is worth our saying as much to those who believe that we have given it up.
Mr. William Cash (Stone):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cash:
It is at this stage that I wish to intervene.
Mr. Bruce:
That is a good reason for me not to give way.
Let me deal with some of the measures that do feature in the Queen's Speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) will lead our party's scrutiny of the working families tax credit. He is generally accepted to be an expert on the subject, and I am sure that, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he will give us the benefit of further insight.
My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) will be following the progress of the Bill regulating the financial services. I shall not say much about the Bill, but, in principle, we have no difficulty in supporting its objective. The devil will, of course, be in the detail. I was interested by the Chief Secretary's suggestion that a joint scrutinising Committee should be set up before the presentation of the Bill: the idea has merit. The right hon. Gentleman also acknowledged that, in financial regulation, it is essential to get the balance right. The argument will centre on whether over-regulation will suppress creativity in the market, or whether under-regulation will damage consumer confidence--especially in a climate in which the Government have, in my party's view, ducked the expansion of the private sector into public-provision pensions. They will need to address that sooner rather than later.
Mr. Cash:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way now?
Mr. Bruce:
I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, who has only just come into the Chamber with the sole purpose of intervening.
At the risk of provoking the hon. Gentleman yet again, I want to talk about European issues and policies. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that he does not have a monopoly of interest in that subject, or the right to assume that he can automatically intervene every time it is mentioned, no matter how Pavlovian his reactions may be. I also want to talk about the new public service agreements.
The Liberal Democrats were disappointed, but not surprised, by the fact that the Gracious Speech contained no measures designed to pave the way towards joining a successful single currency. We have argued--we commend the proposal to the Government--for the publication of a six-monthly joint Treasury and Bank of England report on the extent to which our economy is converging with those of our continental partners. Such a report would not only inform but co-ordinate monetary and fiscal policy in the run-up to euro membership.
As I have said on a number of occasions, the Government seem to be saying, "In principle, we see no objection to joining. The private spin is that we are very much in favour of joining, but we are waiting for things to settle down." I do not think that an undertaking of this importance can be secured on a wing and a prayer; it requires a strategy, and practical action. I would go further, and say that the Prime Minister and his senior Cabinet colleagues will have to come out of the closet.
I understand that, in his previous cloak-and-dagger incarnation, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry believed that the Government--who were all privately committed to British membership of a single currency at the earliest practical opportunity--should wait for public opinion, and the opinion polls, to come round to it. But if they wait, it simply will not happen. When the Murdoch press and its allies are in full cry--when they are organising the argument on one side, and there is nothing but silence from Downing street and the Treasury--are we surprised that the opinion polls are saying what they are saying? We need leadership, we need a timetable and we need a strategy. We cannot simply drift.
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